enforcing and propagating the measures of the ministers, as the most
wise and politic; and that these worthies were paid in proportion to
their boisterous powers, and their impudence; and the reader will easily
conceive that they soon acquired a sufficient stock of the latter, when
they knew under what powerful auspices they were acting. He also
ascertained that, in addition to these itinerant propagators and
champions of tyrannical and despotic measures, they had from one to
three stationary auxiliaries in every principal town in the kingdom, who
frequented all places of public resort, and were always ready to
denounce any man as a Jacobin and an enemy to his country, who dared to
give utterance to an honest, candid thought. These fellows were so
backed on by the local authorities, that the general feeling being also
pretty much in their favour, their insolence was in many cases almost
insufferable. Few men chose to enter the lists with them, because they
had no chance of fair play, nor any probability of arguing the question
with any degree of candour or liberality; and as a man must have either
put up with flat ignorant contradiction, and open premeditated insult,
or have got into a quarrel with them, conversation on political subjects
was for many years effectually banished from almost every public
company. However, since I had returned from my travels (which is the
slang term of going to prison), I had acquired a considerable degree of
confidence, and, accordingly, the very first time that I found this Mr.
Perry pouncing upon one of the company with one of his rude knock-down
arguments, I, without ceremony, took up the cudgels, and announced that,
as long as I continued to be the chairman of that company, it was my
intention to maintain the freedom of conversation, and I called upon the
company to support me in my determination. If they would do this, every
man would, I said, be at liberty to deliver his sentiments upon public
matters with perfect freedom, as long as he abstained from offering any
personal rudeness or insult to any one present, which should not be